You know what this is? This is an attempt to cover their asses for forcing G+ that nobody wanted. I refused to ever signup for Google Plus and was excluded from

You know what this is? This is an attempt to cover their asses for forcing G+ that nobody wanted. I refused to ever signup for Google Plus and was excluded from Hangouts for a longtime and thus even though hangouts supported Google Voice MMS sending and receiving, that could only be done in hangouts which could only be accessed via a G+ account. That restriction was lifted and now they're bringing features they were witholding for G+ signups to GVoice b/c nobody likes G+. Edit update: This is similar to forcing sign in on maps (via dark ux) and search (for cross device attribution, ie squeezing more $ out of you, not providing a better service).